D E C I S I O N

BRION, J.:

Is the preventive suspension of an elected public official an interruption
of his term of office for purposes of the three-term limit rule under Section
8, Article X of the Constitution and Section 43(b) of Republic Act No. 7160 (RA 7160, or the Local Government
Code)?

The respondent Commission on
Elections (COMELEC) ruled that
preventive suspension is an effective interruption because it renders the suspended
public official unable to provide complete service for the full term; thus,
such term should not be counted for the purpose of the three-term limit
rule.

The present petition[1]
seeks to annul and set aside this COMELEC ruling for having been issued with
grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.

THE ANTECEDENTS

The respondent Wilfredo F. Asilo (Asilo) was elected councilor of LucenaCity
for three consecutive terms: for the 1998-2001, 2001-2004, and 2004-2007 terms,
respectively.In September 2005 or
during his 2004-2007 term of office, the Sandiganbayan preventively suspended
him for 90 days in relation with a criminal case he then faced. This Court,
however, subsequently lifted the Sandiganbayan’s suspension order; hence, he
resumed performing the functions of his office and finished his term.

In the 2007 election, Asilo filed his certificate of candidacy for
the same position.The petitioners Simon
B. Aldovino, Jr., Danilo B. Faller, and Ferdinand N. Talabong (the petitioners) sought to deny due
course to Asilo’s certificate of candidacy or to cancel it on the ground that
he had been elected and had served for three terms; his candidacy for a fourth
term therefore violated the three-term limit rule under Section 8, Article X of
the Constitution and Section 43(b) of RA 7160.

The COMELEC’s Second Division ruled
against the petitioners and in Asilo’s favour in its Resolution of November 28, 2007.It reasoned out that the three-term limit
rule did not apply, as Asilo failed to render complete service for the
2004-2007 term because of the suspension the Sandiganbayan had ordered.

The COMELEC en banc refused
to reconsider the Second Division’s ruling in its October 7, 2008 Resolution; hence, the PRESENT PETITIONraising the following ISSUES:

1.Whether
preventive suspension of an elected local official is an interruption of the
three-term limit rule; and

2.Whether preventive suspension is considered
involuntary renunciation as contemplated in Section 43(b) of RA 7160

Thus presented, the case raises the direct issue of whether Asilo’s
preventive suspension constituted an interruption that allowed him to run for a
4th term.

THE COURT’S RULING

We find the petition
meritorious.

General Considerations

The present case is not the first
before this Court on the three-term limit provision of the Constitution, but is
the first on the effect of preventive suspension on the continuity of an
elective official’s term.To be sure,
preventive suspension, as an interruption in the term of an elective public
official, has been mentioned as an example in Borja v. Commission on Elections.[2]Doctrinally,
however, Borja is not a controlling ruling; it did not deal with
preventive suspension, but with the application of the three-term rule on the
term that an elective official acquired by succession.

a.The Three-term Limit Rule:

The Constitutional Provision Analyzed

Section
8, Article X of the Constitution states:

Section 8.The
term of office of elective local officials, except barangay
officials, which shall be determined by law, shall be three
years and no such official shall serve for more than three
consecutive terms.Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be
considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full
term for which he was elected.

Section
43 (b) of RA 7160 practically repeats the constitutional provision, and any
difference in wording does not assume any significance in this case.

As worded, the constitutional
provision fixes the term of a local elective office and limits an elective
official’s stay in office to no more than three consecutive terms.This is the first branch of the rule embodied in Section 8, Article X.

Significantly, this provision refers
to a “term” as a period of time – threeyears – during which an official has
title to office and can serve.Appari v. Court of Appeals,[3]
a Resolution promulgated on November
28, 2007, succinctly discusses what a “term” connotes, as follows:

The word “term” in a legal
sense means a fixed and definite period of time which the law describes that an
officer may hold an office.According to
Mechem, the term of office is the period during which an office may be held.Upon expiration of the officer’s term, unless
he is authorized by law to holdover, his rights, duties and authority as a
public officer must ipso facto cease.
In the law of public officers, the most and natural frequent method by which a
public officer ceases to be such is by the expiration of the terms for which he
was elected or appointed. [Emphasis supplied].

A later case, Gaminde v. Commission on Audit,[4]
reiterated that “[T]he term means the
time during which the officer may claim to hold office as of right, and fixes
the interval after which the several incumbents shall succeed one
another.”

The “limitation” under this first
branch of the provision is expressed in the negative – “no such official
shall serve for more than three consecutive terms.”This formulation – no more than three consecutive
terms – is a clear command suggesting the existence of an inflexible
rule.While it gives no exact indication
of what to “serve. . . three consecutive terms” exactly connotes, the meaning
is clear – reference is to the term, not
to the service that a public official may render.In other words, the limitation refers to the
term.

The second branch relates to the provision’s express initiative to
prevent any circumvention of the limitation through voluntary severance of ties
with the public office; it expressly states that voluntary renunciation of office “shall not be considered as an
interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term for which he
was elected.”This declaration complements
the termlimitation mandated
by the first branch.

A notable feature of the second
branch is that it does not textually
state that voluntary renunciation is the only
actual interruption of service that does not affect “continuity of service for
a full term” for purposes of the three-term limit rule. It is a pure
declaratory statement of what does not serve as an interruption of service for
a full term, but the phrase “voluntary renunciation,” by itself, is not without
significance in determining constitutional intent.

The word “renunciation” carries the
dictionary meaning of abandonment.To
renounce is to give up, abandon, decline, or resign.[5]
It is an act that emanates from its author, as contrasted to an act that
operates from the outside. Read with the
definition of a “term” in mind, renunciation, as mentioned under the second
branch of the constitutional provision, cannot but mean an act that results in cutting short the term, i.e., the loss of title
to office. The descriptive word “voluntary” linked together with
“renunciation” signifies an act of surrender based on the surenderee’s own
freely exercised will; in other words, a loss of title to office by conscious
choice.In the context of the three-term
limit rule, such loss of title is not considered an interruption because it is
presumed to bepurposely sought to avoid
the application of the term limitation.

The following exchanges in the
deliberations of the Constitutional Commission on the term “voluntary
renunciation” shed further light on the extent of the term “voluntary
renunciation”:

MR. MAAMBONG.Could I address the clarificatory question to
the Committee?This term “voluntary
renunciation” does not appear in Section 3 [of Article VI]; it also appears in
Section 6 [of Article VI].

MR DAVIDE. Yes.

MR. MAAMBONG.It
is also a recurring phrase all over the Constitution.Could the Committee please enlighten us
exactly what “voluntary renunciation” mean?Is this akin to abandonment?

MR. DAVIDE. Abandonment is voluntary.In other words, he cannot circumvent the
restriction by merely resigning at any given time on the second term.

MR. MAAMBONG.Is
the Committee saying that the term “voluntary renunciation” is more general
than abandonment and resignation?

From this exchange and Commissioner
Davide’s expansive interpretation of the term “voluntary renunciation,” the framers’
intent apparently was to close all gaps
that an elective official may seize to defeat the three-term limit rule, in
the way that voluntary renunciation has been rendered unavailable as a mode of
defeating the three-term limit rule. Harking back to the text of the
constitutional provision, we note further that Commissioner Davide’s view is
consistent with the negative formulation of the first branch of the provision
and the inflexible interpretation that it suggests.

This
examination of the wording of the constitutional provision and of the
circumstances surrounding its formulation impresses upon us the clear intent to
make term limitation a high priority constitutional objective whose terms must
be strictly construed and which cannot be defeated by, nor sacrificed for, values
of less than equal constitutional worth.We view preventive suspension vis-à-vis term limitation with this
firm mindset.

b.Relevant Jurisprudence on the

Three-term Limit Rule

Other than the above-cited
materials, jurisprudence best gives us a lead into the concepts within the
provision’s contemplation, particularly on the “interruption in the continuity
of service for the full term” that it speaks of.

Lonzanida v. Commission on
Elections[7] presented the question of whether the disqualification on the basis
of the three-term limit applies if the election of the public official (to be
strictly accurate, the proclamation as winner of the public official) for his
supposedly third term had been declared invalid ina final and executory judgment.We ruled that the two requisites for the application of the
disqualification (viz., 1. that the
official concerned has been elected for three consecutive terms in the same
local government post; and 2. that he has fully served three consecutive terms)
were not present. In so ruling, we said:

The clear intent of the framers of the constitution to
bar any attempt to circumvent the three-term limit by a voluntary renunciation
of office and at the same time respect the people’s choice and grant their
elected official full service of a term is evident in this provision.Voluntary renunciation of a term does not
cancel the renounced term in the computation of the three term limit; conversely, involuntary severance from office for any length of time short of
the full term provided by law amounts to an interruption of continuity of
service.The petitioner vacated his post
a few months before the next mayoral elections, not by voluntary renunciation
but in compliance with the legal process of writ of execution issued by the
COMELEC to that effect.Such involuntary severance from office is an interruption of continuity
of service and thus, the petitioner did not fully serve the 1995-1998
mayoral term. [Emphasis supplied]

Our intended meaning
under this ruling is clear: it is severance from office, or to be exact, loss
of title, that renders the three-term limit rule inapplicable.

Ong v. Alegre[8]and Rivera v. COMELEC,[9]
like Lonzanida, also involved the
issue of whether there had been a completed term for purposes of the three-term
limit disqualification. These cases, however, presented an interesting twist,
as their final judgments in the electoral contest came after the term of the
contested office had expired so that the elective officials in these cases were
never effectively unseated.

Despite the ruling that Ongwas never entitled to the office (and thus was never validly
elected), the Court concluded that there was nevertheless an election and
service for a full term in contemplation of the three-term rule based on the
following premises: (1) the final decision that the third-termer lost the election
was without practical and legal use and value, having been promulgated after
the term of the contested office had expired; and (2) the official assumed and
continuously exercised the functions of the office from the start to the end of
the term.The Court noted in Ong the absurdity and the deleterious
effect of a contrary view – that the official (referring to
the winner in the election protest) would, under the three-term rule, be
considered to have served a term by virtue of a veritably meaningless
electoral protest ruling, when another actually served the term pursuant to a
proclamation made in due course after an election.This factual variation led the Court to rule
differently from Lonzanida.

In the same vein, the Court in Rivera
rejected the theory that the official who finally lost the election contest was
merely a “caretaker of the office” or a mere “de facto officer.”The Court obeserved that Section 8, Article X
of the Constitution is violated and its purpose defeated when an official fully
servedin the same position for three consecutive terms.Whether as “caretaker” or “de facto”
officer, he exercised the powers and enjoyed the perquisites of the office that
enabled him “to stay on indefinitely.”

Ong and Rivera are important rulings
for purposes of the three-term limitation because of what they directly
imply.Although the election requisite
was not actually present, the Court still gave full effect to the three-term
limitation because of the constitutional intent to strictly limit elective
officials to service for three terms.By
so ruling, the Court signalled how zealously it guards the three-term limit
rule.Effectively, these cases teach
us to strictly interpret the term limitation rule in favor of limitation rather
than its exception.

Adormeo v. Commission on
Elections[10] dealt with the effect of recall on the three-term limit
disqualification.The case presented the
question of whether the disqualification applies if the official lost in the
regular election for the supposed third term, but was elected in a recall
election covering that term.The Court
upheld the COMELEC’s ruling that the official was not elected for three (3)
consecutive terms.The Court reasoned out that for nearly two years, the official was a
private citizen; hence, the continuity of his mayorship was disrupted by his
defeat in the election for the third term.

Socrates v. Commission on
Elections[11]also tackled recall vis-à-vis the three-term limit
disqualification.Edward Hagedorn served
three full terms as mayor.As he was
disqualified to run for a fourth term, he did not participate in the election
that immediately followed his third term.In this election, the petitioner Victorino Dennis M. Socrates was
elected mayor.Less than 1 ½ years after
Mayor Socrates assumed the functions of the office, recall proceedings were
initiated against him, leading to the call for a recall election.Hagedorn filed his certificate of candidacy
for mayor in the recall election, but Socrates sought his disqualification on
the ground that he (Hagedorn) had fully served three terms prior to the recall
election and was therefore disqualified to run because of the three-term limit
rule.We decided in Hagedorn’s favor,
ruling that:

After three consecutive terms, an elective local
official cannot seek immediate reelection for a fourth
term.The prohibited election refers to
the next regular election for the same office following the end of the third
consecutive term.Any subsequentelection,
like a recall election, is no longer covered by the prohibition for two
reasons.First, a subsequent election like a recall election is no longer an
immediate reelection after three consecutive terms.Second, the intervening period constitutes an
involuntary interruption in the continuity of service.

When the framers of the Constitution debated on the
term limit of elective local officials, the question asked was whether there
would be no further election after three terms, or whether there would be “no
immediate reelection” after three terms.

xxxx

Clearly, what the Constitution prohibits is an immediate
reelection for a fourth term following three consecutive terms.The Constitution, however, does not prohibit
a subsequent reelection for a fourth term as long as the reelection is not
immediately after the end of the third consecutive term.A recall election mid-way in the term
following the third consecutive term is a subsequent election but not an
immediate reelection after the third term.

Neither does the Constitution prohibit one barred from
seeking immediate reelection to run in any other subsequent election involving
the same term of office.What the
Constitution prohibits is a consecutive fourth term.[12]

Latasa v. Commission on
Elections[13]presented the novel question of whether a municipal mayor who had fully served for three consecutive terms
could run as city mayor in light of
the intervening conversion of the municipality into a city.During the third term, the municipality was
converted into a city; the cityhood charter provided that the elective
officials of the municipality shall, in a holdover capacity, continue to
exercise their powers and functions until elections were held for the new city
officials.The Court ruled that the
conversion of the municipality into a city did not convert the office of the
municipal mayor into a local government post different from the office of the
city mayor – the territorial jurisdiction of the city was the same as that of
the municipality; the inhabitants were the same group of voters who elected the
municipal mayor for 3 consecutive terms; and they were the same inhabitants
over whom the municipal mayor held power and authority as theirchief executive for nine years.The Court said:

This Court reiterates that the
framers of the Constitution specifically included an exception to the people’s
freedom to choose those who will govern them in order to avoid the evil of a
single person accumulating excessive power over a particular territorial
jurisdiction as a result of a prolonged stay in the same office.To
allow petitioner Latasa to vie for the position of city mayor
after having served for three consecutive terms as a municipal mayor would
obviously defeat the very intent of the framers when they wrote this exception.Should he be allowed another three
consecutive terms as mayor of the City of Digos,
petitioner would then be possibly holding office as chief executive over the
same territorial jurisdiction and inhabitants for a total of eighteen consecutive
years.This is the very scenario sought
to be avoided by the Constitution, if not abhorred by it.[14]

Latasa instructively highlights, after a review of Lonzanida, Adormeo and Socrates, that no three-term limit
violation results if a rest period or break in the service between terms or
tenure in a given elective post intervened.In Lonzanida, the petitioner was a private citizen with no title
to any elective office for a few months before the next mayoral elections.Similarly, in Adormeo and Socrates,
the private respondents lived as private citizens for two years and fifteen
months, respectively.Thus, these cases establish that the law
contemplates a complete break from office during which the local elective
official steps down and ceases to exercise power or authority over the
inhabitants of the territorial jurisdiction of a particular local government
unit.

Seemingly differing from these
results is the case of Montebon v.
Commission on Elections,[15]where the highest-ranking municipal
councilor succeeded to the position of vice-mayor by operation of law.The question posed when he subsequently ran
for councilor was whether his assumption as vice-mayor was an interruption of
his term as councilor that would place him outside the operation of the
three-term limit rule.We ruled that an
interruption had intervened so that he could again run as councilor.This result seemingly deviates from the
results in the cases heretofore discussed since the elective official continued
to hold public office and did not become a private citizen during the
interim.The common thread that
identifies Montebon with the rest,
however, is that the elective official vacatedthe office of councilor and assumed the higher post of vice-mayor by
operation of law. Thus, for a time he ceased to be councilor – an
interruption that effectively placed him outside the ambit of the three-term
limit rule.

c.Conclusion Based on Law

and Jurisprudence

From all the above, we conclude that
the “interruption” of a term exempting an elective official from the three-term
limit rule is one that involves no less
than the involuntary loss of title to office.The elective official must have involuntarily
left his office for a length of time, however short, for an effective
interruption to occur. This has to be the case if the thrust of Section 8,
Article X and its strict intent are to be faithfully served, i.e., to limit an elective official’s
continuous stay in office to no more than three consecutive terms, using
“voluntary renunciation” as an example and standard of what does not constitute
an interruption.

Thus, based on this standard, loss
of office by operation of law, being
involuntary, is an effective interruption of service within a term, as we held
in Montebon.On the other hand, temporary inability or
disqualification to exercise the functions of an elective post, even if
involuntary, should not be considered an effective interruption of a term
because it does not involve the loss of title to office or at least an
effective break from holding office; the office holder, while retaining title,
is simply barred from exercising the functions of his office for a reason
provided by law.

An interruption occurs when the term
is broken because the office holder lost the right to hold on to his office,
and cannot be equated with the failure to render service.The latter occurs during an office holder’s
term when he retains title to the office but cannot exercise his functions for
reasons established by law.Of course,
the term “failure to serve” cannot be used once the right to office is lost;
without the right to hold office or to serve, then no service can be rendered
so that none is really lost.

To put it differently although
at the risk of repetition, Section 8, Article X – both by structure and
substance – fixes an elective official’s term of office and limits his stay in
office to three consecutive terms as an inflexible rule that is stressed, no
less, by citing voluntary renunciation as an example of a circumvention.The provision should be read in the context
of interruption of term, not in the context of interrupting the full continuity of the exercise of the
powers of the elective position. The “voluntary renunciation” it speaks of
refers only to the elective official’s voluntary relinquishment of office and
loss of title to this office.It does
not speak of the temporary “cessation of the exercise of power or authority”
that may occur for various reasons, with preventive suspension being only one
of them.To quote Latasa v. Comelec:[16]

Indeed,
[T]he law contemplates a rest period during which the local elective
official steps down from office and ceases to exercise power or authority
over the inhabitants of the territorial jurisdiction of a particular local
government unit. [Emphasis supplied].

Preventive
Suspension and

the Three-Term
Limit Rule

a.Nature of Preventive Suspension

Preventive suspension – whether
under the Local Government Code,[17]
the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act,[18]
or the Ombudsman Act[19]
– is an interim remedial measure to
address the situation of an official who have been charged administratively or
criminally, where the evidence preliminarily indicates the likelihood of or
potential for eventual guilt or liability.

Preventive suspension is imposed
under the Local Government Code “when
the evidence of guilt is strong and given the gravity of the offense, there is
a possibility that the continuance in office of the respondent could influence
the witnesses or pose a threat to the safety and integrity of the records and
other evidence.” Under the Anti-Graft and
Corrupt Practices Act, it is imposed after a valid information (that
requires a finding of probable cause) has been filed in court, while under the Ombudsman Act, it is imposed when, in
the judgment of the Ombudsman, the evidence of guilt is strong; and (a) the
charge involves dishonesty, oppression or grave misconduct or neglect in the
performance of duty; or (b) the charges would warrant removal from the service;
or (c) the respondent’s continued stay in office may prejudice the case filed
against him.

Notably in all cases of preventive
suspension, the suspended official is barred from performing the functions of
his office and does not receive salary in the meanwhile, but does not vacate
and lose title to his office; loss of office is a consequence that only results
upon an eventual finding of guilt or liability.

Preventive suspension is a remedial
measure that operates under closely-controlled conditions and gives a premium to the protection of the
service rather than to the interests of the individual office holder.Even then, protection of the service goes
only as far as a temporary prohibition
on the exerciseof the functions of the official’s office; the official is
reinstated to the exercise of his
position as soon as the preventive suspension is lifted.Thus, while a temporary incapacity in the
exercise of power results, no position is vacated when a public official is
preventively suspended.This was what exactly happened to Asilo.

That the imposition of preventive
suspension can be abused is a reality that is true in the exercise of all
powers and prerogative under the Constitution and the laws. The imposition of
preventive suspension, however, is not an unlimited power; there are
limitations built into the laws[20]
themselves that the courts can enforce when these limitations are transgressed,
particularly when grave abuse of discretion is present.In light of this well-defined parameters in
the imposition of preventive suspension, we should not view preventive
suspension from the extreme situation –that it can totally deprive an
elective office holder of the prerogative to serve and is thus an effective
interruption of an election official’s term.

Term limitation and preventive
suspension are two vastly different aspects of an elective officials’ service
in office and they do not overlap.As
already mentioned above, preventive suspension involves protection of the
service and of the people being served, and prevents the office holder from
temporarily exercising the power of his office. Term limitation, on the other
hand, is triggered after an elective official has served his three terms in
office without any break. Its companion concept – interruption of a term – on
the other hand, requires loss of title to office.If preventive suspension and term limitation
or interruption have any commonality at all, this common point may be with
respect to the discontinuity of service that may occur in both.But even on this point, they merely run
parallel to each other and never intersect; preventive suspension, by its
nature, is a temporary incapacity to render service duringan
unbroken term; in the context of term limitation, interruption of service occurs after there has
been a break in the term.

b. Preventive Suspension and

the Intent of the Three-Term

Limit Rule

Strict adherence to the intent of
the three-term limit rule demands that preventive suspension should not be
considered an interruption that allows an elective official’s stay in office
beyond three terms. A preventive
suspension cannot simply be a term interruption because the suspended official
continues to stay in office although he is barred from exercising the functions
and prerogatives of the office within the suspension period. The best
indicator of the suspended official’s continuity in office is the absence of a permanent replacement and the lack of the authority to appoint one since no vacancy exists.

To allow a preventively suspended
elective official to run for a fourth and prohibited term is to close our eyes
to this reality and to allow a constitutional violation through sophistry by
equating the temporary inability to discharge the functions of office with the
interruption of term that the constitutional provision contemplates. To be
sure, many reasons exist, voluntary or involuntary – some of them personal and
some of them by operation of law – that may temporarily prevent an elective
office holder from exercising the functions of his office in the way that
preventive suspension does. A serious extended illness, inability through force majeure, or the enforcement of a
suspension as a penalty, to cite some involuntary examples, may prevent an
office holder from exercising the functions of his office for a time without
forfeiting title to office.Preventive
suspension is no different because it disrupts actual delivery of service for a
time within a term.Adopting such
interruption of actual service as the
standard to determine effective interruption of term under the three-term rule
raises at least the possibility of confusion in implementing this rule, given
the many modes and occasions when actual service may be interrupted in the
course of serving a term of office. The
standard may reduce the enforcement of the three-term limit rule to a
case-to-case and possibly see-sawing determination of what an effective
interruption is.

c.Preventive Suspension and

Voluntary Renunciation

Preventive suspension, because it is
imposed by operation of law, does not involve a voluntary act on the part of
the suspended official, except in the indirect sense that he may have
voluntarily committed the act that became the basis of the charge against him. From
this perspective, preventive suspension does not have the element of
voluntariness that voluntary renunciation embodies. Neither does it contain the
element of renunciation or loss of title to office as it merely involves the
temporary incapacity to perform the service that an elective office demands.
Thus viewed, preventive suspension is – by its very nature – the exact opposite
of voluntary renunciation; it is involuntary and temporary, and involves only
the actual delivery of service, not the title to the office.The easy conclusion therefore is that they
are, by nature, different and non-comparable.

But beyond the obvious comparison of
their respective natures is the more important consideration of how they affect
the three-term limit rule.

Voluntary renunciation, while involving
loss of office and the total incapacity to render service, is disallowed by the
Constitution as an effective interruption of a term.It is therefore not allowed as a mode of
circumventing the three-term limit rule.

Preventive suspension, by its nature,
does not involve an effective interruption of a term and should therefore not
be a reason to avoid the three-term limitation.It can pose as a threat, however, if we shall disregard its nature and
consider it an effective interruption of a term. Let it be noted that a
preventive suspension is easier to undertake than voluntary renunciation, as it
does not require relinquishment or loss of office even for the briefest time.
It merely requires an easily fabricated administrative charge that can be dismissed
soon after a preventive suspension has been imposed. In this sense, recognizing
preventive suspension as an effective interruption of a term can serve as a
circumvention more potent than the voluntary renunciation that the Constitution
expressly disallows as an interruption.

Conclusion

To recapitulate, Asilo’s 2004-2007
term was not interrupted by the Sandiganbayan-imposed preventive suspension in
2005, as preventive suspension does not interrupt an elective official’s term.Thus, the COMELEC refused to apply the legal
command of Section 8, Article X of the Constitution when it granted due course to Asilo’s certificate of candidacy for a
prohibited fourth term. By so refusing, the COMELEC effectively committed grave
abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction; its action was
a refusal to perform a positive duty required by no less than the Constitution
and was one undertaken outside the contemplation of law.[21]

WHEREFORE, premises considered, we GRANT the petition and accordingly NULLIFY the assailed COMELECrulings. The private respondent Wilfredo F. Asilo is declared DISQUALIFIED to run, and perforce to
serve, as Councilor of Lucena City for a prohibited fourth term. Costs against
private respondent Asilo.

SO ORDERED.

ARTURO
D. BRION

Associate Justice

WE
CONCUR:

REYNATO S. PUNO

Chief
Justice

ANTONIO T. CARPIO

Acting
Chief Justice

CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES

Associate
Justice

ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA

Associate
Justice

DIOSDADO M. PERALTA

Associate Justice

RENATO C. CORONA

Associate Justice

PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR.

Associate
Justice

TERESITA J. LEONARDO-DE CASTRO

Associate Justice

LUCAS P. BERSAMIN

Associate Justice

MARIANO C. DEL
CASTILLOROBERTO A. ABAD

Associate JusticeAssociate Justice

MARTIN S. VILLARAMA, JR.

Associate Justice

CERTIFICATION

Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, it is
hereby certified that the conclusions in the above Decision were reached in
consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the
Court.

REYNATO S.
PUNO

Chief Justice

[1]Filed under Rule 64, in
relation with Rule 65 of the Rules of Court.

[21] Grave abuse of discretion defies exact definition, but it generally
refers to “capricious or whimsical exercise of judgment as is equivalent to
lack of jurisdiction – the abuse of discretion must be patent and gross as to
amount to an evasion of positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform a duty
enjoined by law, or to act at all in contemplation of law, as where the power
is exercised in an arbitrary and despotic manner by reason of passion and
hostility; Quintos v. Commission on
Elections, 440 Phil. 1045, 1064 (2002), citing Sahali v. Commission on
Elections, 381 Phil. 505 (2002).